How many points in a point cloud is sufficient for accurate estimation of the curvature

Abstract

We introduce an estimator for the curvature of curves and surfaces by using finite sample points drawn from sampling a probability distribution that has support on the curve or surface. First we give an algorithm for estimation of the curvature in a given point of a curve. Then, we extend it to estimate the Gaussian curvature of the surfaces. In the proposed algorithms, we use a relation between the number of selected points in the point cloud and the probability that a given point has a suffcient number of nearby points. This relation allows us to control the required number of points in the point cloud.